Predatory lending could force Bed-Stuy elder out of home

A 16-year-old loan from predatory lender Delta Funding is threatening to leave an 82-year-old great-grandmother homeless. The New York Daily News reported Mary Lee Ward faces eviction from her Bedford-Stuyvesant home.

In 1995 Ward was targeted by Delta Funding, a subprime lender that was sued by the federal government four years later for zeroing in on black women in Brooklyn and Queens with predatory loans, which sent her a flyer promising a $10,000 cash advance if she borrowed against her single-family home at 320 Tompkins Avenue. Ward accepted the offer needing cash to protect her great-granddaughter from being adopted.

But she claims she only received $1,000 of the cash. In 2001 Delta Funding told her they had canceled the loan. However, it appears that never happened and her mortgage has been kicked around for years, growing from a $82,000 loan to a debt of more than $200,000, before being bought in a foreclosure auction last year by 768 Dean Inc. The firm sent her 18 eviction notices in a single day last weekend, and grass-roots lawyers who have taken her case admit the law offers her little protection. [NYDN]